Checking in With the Sisters – No Perfection Necessary

How often do you feel pressure to do it all…to be a totally “put-together,” do-it-all mom? I know I feel that pressure regularly, and I admit that I am the one to blame for that feeling of pressure to be “perfect.” I loved this post and poem by Genny on our sister site 5 Minutes for Faith.

The other day, I was looking through some magazine articles I’d written and I came across one of my poems that was published in a teen magazine years ago….

I wrote the poem in part as a reflection of how I felt back in college, secretly struggling with my self-image and food, then coming out of it through my faith. But even though it draws from that period of my life and is geared toward teens, how many of us struggle with these types of feelings–striving for perfection, but feeling flawed–into adulthood?

Especially as moms, we can put unnecessary pressure on ourselves to “have it all together.” But the good news is, that’s not God’s plan for us–trying to be perfect all the time. According to Him, we are wonderfully made regardless of what we look like or how we feel. Regardless of how nice our houses are or how well-behaved our kids act. Our value isn’t in how many committees we lead, how well our kids get along, if we buy cookies from the store instead of baking them from scratch, or how we “perform” as moms.